'American Idol' is now 3rd-rated competition show

NEW YORK (AP) — Television's champion for nearly a decade, Fox's "American Idol," now isn't even the most popular competition show on the air.

Both editions of "The Voice" on NBC and "Dancing With the Stars" on ABC had larger audiences than "Idol" last week, the Nielsen Co. said. "Idol" has been the most popular entertainment program in prime time for nine years running and appears likely to lose that perch this season.

"The Voice" had 14.2 million viewers last Monday and 12.8 million on Tuesday, Nielsen said. Its showing was more impressive among the 19- to 49-year-old viewers that NBC most actively seeks; the shows ranked No. 1 and 3 on that measurement last week.

"American Idol" had 12.5 million viewers on Wednesday and 11.4 million on Thursday, Nielsen said. Among the younger demographic, "Idol" outpaces "Dancing With the Stars."

The most popular show on television this season so far is CBS' "NCIS," and it was the same story last week: The drama led with 17.3 million viewers.

CBS won the week in prime time with an average of 8.7 million viewers (5.6 rating, 9 share). ABC had 6.4 million viewers (4.2, 7), Fox had 6.1 million (3.7, 6), NBC had 5.1 million (3.3, 5), the CW had 1.4 million (0.9, 1) and ION Television had 1.1 million (0.8, 1).

Among the Spanish-language networks, Univision led with a 3.4 million viewership average (1.8, 3). Telemundo had 1.5 million (0.8, 1), UniMas had 510,000 (0.3, 0), Estrella had 210,000 and Azteca 90,000 (both 0.1, 0).

NBC's "Nightly News" topped the evening newscasts with an average of 8.1 million viewers (5.6, 11). ABC's "World News" was second with 7.5 million (5.2, 11) and the "CBS Evening News" had 6.4 million viewers (3.9, 8).

A ratings point represents 1,147,000 households, or 1 percent of the nation's estimated 114.7 million TV homes. The share is the percentage of in-use televisions tuned to a given show.

ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Co. CBS is owned by CBS Corp. CW is a joint venture of Warner Bros. Entertainment and CBS Corp. Fox and My Network TV are units of News Corp. NBC and Telemundo are owned by Comcast Corp. ION Television is owned by ION Media Networks. UniMas is a division of Univision. Azteca America is a wholly owned subsidiary of TV Azteca S.A. de C.V.